


Monster

by unicyclehippo



Category: Carmilla (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, LaKarnstein brotp, also laura does laura things, and carmilla adores them, can we call it LaVampire?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-05
Updated: 2015-01-05
Packaged: 2018-03-05 13:20:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3121691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unicyclehippo/pseuds/unicyclehippo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tumblr prompt - post christmas special, Carmilla is terrified that Laura will only see her as a monster now that she's seen her murder someone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Monster

Laura knew when she fell for the stupid, broody vampire that sometimes she would be stupid, sometimes she would be broody, and sometimes she would be vampiric. As in the whole biting people, blood drinking, maybe a little supernatural thingamajig stuff thrown in. That kind of vampire stuff. Carmilla was always a vampire but sometimes, Laura knew, she'd be  _more_ vampire than she was at other times and - Laura shook her head. 

Focus, Hollis. She had to focus. 

She had a problem. 

Carmilla thought - or, well, Laura thought that she thought it because Carmilla had been talking to LaFontaine (apparently they were pretty good friends and they met up on the rooftop sometimes because Carmilla liked to look at the stars and feel the wind on her face and remind herself that she wasn't locked beneath the ground and unable to free herself and that she was a part of something bigger and that gravity, at least, still found a reason to hold her to the ground and that above all that she was okay. LaFontaine liked to sit there because, and Carmilla would swear sideways that she wasn't the one to give them this talk but she was the one who loved stars to some incredible degree so of course she was the one who told LaF that in a world so minuscule comparatively to the wide and ever-growing universe, in a world so huge compared to its inhabitants, in a world that had to follow the laws of physics and that orbited, hurtling through space, around and around and that danced oblivious through the heavens to the fact that human destroyed and built in near equal measure and they grew and grew and it was oblivious to the fact that the stars, stupendously large and beautiful and made of burning fire, and everything in between and a world oblivious to such things cared nothing for one small ape-like creature on its back who wasn't sure for the moment who they were or what they wanted or whether they dared to discuss with the person they loved that they were different and "there were certain things that could be decided by lines, LaFontaine, do you hear me? lines determine the circles of orbit and the increase or decrease in profit or where words are placed on a page, they are the direct path," she said with an arm stretched out to point up at the brightest star in front of her, "from Point A to Point B," arm sweeping to the side. "lines do not determine hearts or the measure of love or the way a person feels about who they are when all they know are A and B".) They liked to sit on the the roof with Carmilla because they liked Carmilla. Laura found out one night when they met her in the hallway and waved their hand vaguely upwards towards the roof and said that, yeah, Carmilla was still up there probably, they had only just left her and maybe if you ran you could catch her.

Most recently, Carmilla had been talking to LaFontaine, slightly drunk or more than slightly drunk, and her silent thoughts had spilled from her lips like the liquor from the bottle, onto the table between them, into the cups, when her hand shook as she poured them both a drink. 

"Look, L, she kinda thinks you might think she's a monster." They held their hands up. "She did disembowel someone right in front of us," they reminded her, "so you know, it's not exactly in the column of impossible thoughts. Can I have my stuff back now?"

She told LaF where she had hidden their things - collateral only to be returned upon good solid information - and then, mind turning the word  _monster_ over and over in her mind, she began to work. 

By the time Carmilla returned the next morning, Laura was ready. She was also over caffeinated and bounced lightly in place as Carmilla came into the room. She was ready. So ready. She was ready and it was going to be great. Carmilla took in the mess that was her girlfriend - hair ruffled, a faint line on her cheek that might have been from the marker in her hand, crumbs, wearing the same clothes as the day before - and she grinned. 

"Well hey there, cutie," she greeted. Threw her bag onto her bed and body following. 

"Hi! Sit, sit," Laura urged. 

"I am sitting?" she pointed out to the girl and Laura nodded and gave her a quick double thumbs up and began to pace the small distance between the desk and the heads of their beds - three of Laura's steps, she turned and started again, staring a nervous stare at the floorboards. Technically, she was resuming her pacing. Her legs were actually hurting a little she had been pacing so much as she waited for Carmilla. She had only stopped to greet the girl but she started again because staying still wasn't an option, her stomach was churning and her hands were sweating a little and god she  _really_ shouldn't be this nervous but she was and that was just something she was going to have to deal with.

Carmilla lounged and grinned and watched. The pacing was amusing, the way that the girl muttered nonsensically to herself more so. And the bunched up face she made - similar to but changed from her angry bunched up face - was absolutely adorable and it was hard to believe that the sweet girl was hers - no - not hers, she didn't belong to Carmilla - the thought made something dark creep into her chest and she looked away, not wanting to give the darkness an opportunity to wrap around Laura. But that was all she was, a carrier of darkness, of course it would taint the girl at some point, it was only a touch away, barely tucked behind the coolness and the distance that Carmilla insisted upon. She should tell Laura to leave, no, god, how selfish was that, she should be the one to leave the room to leave the girl alone because she was a 

"Monster." 

Laura blurted out the word, coming finally to a standstill in front of Carmilla. 

The effect was immediate. Carmilla stiffened and pushed up enough on the bed to sit herself warily on the edge like an origami crane, all precise angles and delicate and folded in on itself and still, in case a single movement would send it to the ground. 

Laura rushed to fill the sudden yawning gap - Carmilla wasn't breathing anymore, not that she needed to but the action was noticeable once she had ceased and it worried the smaller girl - and she realised with a dawning sense of  _stupid stupid stupid_ that she had majorly fucked up. "Not you!" she said. Carmilla was closing herself up, shoulders inching higher almost to her ears as her chin fell to tuck against her chest, her bangs fell in front of her face and no no no that's not at all how Laura wanted this discussion to go,  _curse_ her stupid big mouth for blurting things out like that when she was nervous. "Not you!" she repeated, desperation at the roof of her mouth. "The word. The  _word_ monster is, its origins come from the Latin  _monstrum_ which is, umm," she lost track for a moment of what she wanted to say because Carmilla was peeking up at her with dark eyes and there was a chill in the air that was warning for Laura to hurry up or else (not in a threatening way, more in a Carmilla would leave and she might never be seen again kind of way and Laura didn't want that. Above all else, she didn't want that.) "Originally from the Latine  _monere_ for 'warn'." She bit her lip. "I made a chart."

Two charts, technically. 

The second was mostly blank and was for future use. It was an interactive activity, sort of. 

The first chart would set up the discussion for them and had everything Laura wanted to talk about. They were dot points, basically. She needed them desperately. (LaFontaine helped her with the idea because, as they helpfully pointed out, Laura tended to lose track of her words where Carmilla was concerned because "oh my god, LaF, she is just too pretty, you know? And that's so not fair because she so totally  _knows_ it and she  _looks_ at me and I  _forget_ " "forget what?" "Everything!" and the discussion was accompanied by wide, frustrated gestures and a foot stomp.)

She held her hand up to Carmilla in a sign to  _wait right there, please, I'll be right back_ and ducked into the bathroom to drag her easel and whiteboard across the floor - she had to pause once or twice to shake out the muscles in her arms - and position it facing Carmilla's bed. 

"So, the, uh," she pulled the blanket away from the board because she couldn't look at the very small - maybe shy? or nervous? - Carmilla anymore because god she was so beautiful and the delicate sharpness of her was oh so dangerous and oh so worth it and Laura shook her head -  _focus_ \- and pointed to the chart. 

"The most common definition of monster," she said in the most professional tone she could muster, "and I'm using the Oxford dictionary here so if you have another definition I will be very happy to put it down." She picked up her marker but Carmilla was silent, and a little bit shocked (?) (Laura wished she was better at reading people but she wasn't sure how much help that would be given that Carmilla had had centuries of perfecting her poker face so...). Laura barrelled on in her typical fashion. "She pointed to the first on the list, "'A large, ugly, and frightening imaginary creature' is the first definition. I'm going to separate these so we can analyze these better," she muttered, putting square brackets around [large], [ugly], [frightening], [imaginary], and [creature] and she stepped back with her hands on her hips. 

"Okay!" A wide smile told Carmilla to hold on, they were about to start. She wasn't sure exactly what was happening. But it was and it was all Laura's idea and so she sat and stayed and she listened. "First of all, you're only an inch taller than me." [large], therefore, was promptly crossed off the board. 

"Second, you are not ugly." Laura stepped forward just far enough that she could very quickly kiss Carmilla's cheek. Then, returning, [ugly] was promptly crossed off the board. 

"Third, well," Laura paused. "I'll leave that on just because just wow you are kind of really strong and fast and you can set things on fire so..." Laura shrugged, Carmilla shrugged and nodded, and they continued. 

"Fourth, you are not imaginary." [imaginary], therefore, was promptly crossed off. (She put a second line through it because there was a time, before Danny carried her out of the Pit and returned her to her home, when Laura saw Carmilla over and over again, crowding her bed, dragging herself along the floor with bloodied skin and matted hair and nails like screeching chalk, or lounging in her bed all dark and welcoming with a smile like nighttime a glass of blood in her hand a book bigger than Laura next to her, and Laura didn't like to remember those days when she wasn't quite sure what was real and what wasn't so she put another line through [imaginary] and another and then forced herself to step away.)

"I'm going to leave creature because you  _are_ a giant black cat." She drew a cute kitten face next to the word - tongue poking out just slightly as she drew whisker whisker whisker whisker - and then spun with a little jump to beam at Carmilla, who was still blank-faced and apathetic, playing with a loose shoe lace on her boot and chin resting on her knee. (Boots on the bed and Laura really should have a talk with her about that because dirt and sheets were not supposed to mix.) She hadn't left yet. Laura took that as a good sign. 

"Next. The second definition of monster is 'An inhumanly cruel or wicked person'." Laura's lips turned down when Carmilla turned her head away and yawned as if bored. The tension in her hands - clenched into white knuckled fists - gave the girl away and Laura continued quickly because there was no way that she could leave Carmilla to think that about herself. "Carmilla," she said because she loved to say the name,  _her_ name, and because if she asked her to, Carmilla would look at her, if she asked well she had begun to suspect that perhaps Carmilla would do a lot of things for her, and sure enough the dark-haired girl huffed and turned back to the board. "Thank you. Let's take this one apart as well." [inhumanly], [cruel], [wicked], [person] were bracketed and pulled apart and Laura frowned at them because they were harsh words, just as harsh separate as they were together, and she didn't like anyone thinking that these were the words that made up Carmilla. 

"This doesn't apply to you," she said as she put a line through [inhumanly]. 

"You don't have any proof of that, cupcake," the girl drawled and it was the first she had spoken and Laura had wished perhaps that it would have been agreement or a sudden realisation that she was wonderful and not a monster at all - it wasn't that, but it was an effort to contribute and Laura would take it. 

"You feel stuff, Carmilla. You used to be a little human girl with human feelings," she teased, seeing the quirk of Carmilla's lips, "and don't even try to give me any of that broody vampire ooh I live in the dark and eat people for breakfast stuff. I saw you when you watched UP - you cried and you can't deny that. And I know that stealing my food makes you happy because you like teasing me and I know that you get sad sometimes and I know that you can feel love so I  _am_ going to keep this crossed out." Laura raised her eyebrows at her in question until Carmilla sighed and waved her hand as if to say 'proceed'. Laura counted it as a win. 

"Next, cruel." Laura stared at it for a long moment before she put a dot underneath it. "I'm leaving it there because I think that by itself it's a very human attribute and, let's be honest, sometimes you do things just to be mean to people." Carmilla snorted. "I know you were the one who coated all of the Summer Society's weapons in itching powder so don't pretend otherwise,  _cupcake_." Carmilla wouldn't pretend. She was proud of that - it hadn't been easy doing so undetected - and they both knew it. "But you aren't inhumanly cruel. You're...selectively cruel. Okay, you're a bit of an asshole, but you aren't  _entirely_ an asshole." Carmilla huffed but nodded. It was kind of true. Laura bit her lip. It didn't sound good to call the other girl an asshole when she was trying to convince her that she wasn't a bad person but whatever, there was a larger point to this whole thing and she had to move on. "Next, wicked."

"Oh don't bother crossing that one out," Carmilla said -  _purred_ , Laura's hazy mind corrected her as it stuttered to a halt - from where she was suddenly behind the smaller girl. Damn her vampire speed. Her fingernails scratched a light path up Laura's sides, breath puffed out against her neck with the express purpose of making Laura shiver (and the added bonus of Laura going weak in the knees and clutching fiercely at the marker in her hand). 

Okay," Laura murmured. "Keeping wicked then," she said with a weak smile and then shifted out and away from Carmilla. She pulled the chart down and exchanged it with the one on her bed. "Moving on!"

The carefully placed board read in neat capitals over the top PROS AND CONS OF HOLLSTEIN. Hollstein was written in spikey lettering that Carmilla (rightly) identified as belonging to LaFontaine. 

"What's Hollstein?"

"Oh that's our dating name. Holl from Hollis and stein from Karnstein."

"Huh."

"Cute, right?"

"Sure, cupcake." Carmilla moved from that to read the lists Laura had neatly set up beneath the title. There were two. Carmilla on one side; Laura on the other. And in the Carmilla list, which was separated once more into pros and cons, was as follows:

PROS - HOT, NICE, MAKES ME COCOA, CUDDLES, PROTECTIVE, VERY SMART, (great ass was written very small to the side), ANNOYINGLY PRETTY

CONS - MONSTER, SUPER MESSY, DOESN'T WASH DISHES, ANNOYINGLY PRETTY

Laura showed Carmilla the word, underlining it with her finger, and pointedly and fiercely uncapped her marker, crossing it out until it was an unrecognisable scribble. 

"Okay, your turn."

"My turn?"

"Your turn," Laura confirmed. "You get to write stuff about us on the list."

"About you?" Carmilla twirled the pen in her fingers. 

"Or about you." Laura picked up another pen - this time green - and Carmilla eyed it, pouting. "You want the green one, don't you?" The other girl nodded and Laura held it out for an exchange. (Carmilla thanked her with a kiss on the cheek and that made giving up her favourite marker very much worth it.) Then they began. 

Laura itched to cross out some of the things that Carmilla wrote - VIOLENT, DARK, SCARY, MURDERER, LITERALLY BLOOD SUCKING FIEND??? were among them - because she didn't see Carmilla like that, she never had, but it was good at the girl was getting them out and down onto paper (board, technically) and she would never want Carmilla to think that she wasn't allowed to write them down or say them, wasn't allowed to tell Laura what she thought of herself so she let them remain even though they were building up for her a Carmilla that Laura didn't recognise. And maybe that was the point of this, a point to it that Laura hadn't known was there when she had begun. Maybe Laura  _did_ need to see these because they were there - if Carmilla thought them about herself then they were there and they did need to be addressed. (She might not let herself cross the words out but she was definitely going to make sure that there were plenty of things written down in the PROS column.)

So absorbed in scrawling down all of the things she lo-adored about her girlfriend was Laura that she didn't see Carmilla doing the same thing in Laura's column - her sleeve  _accidentally_ rubbed at the words Laura had added to her own CONS column until BOSSY, LOUD, TOO ENTHUSIASTIC, DOESN'T LISTEN, ...RECKLESS (BUT ONLY SOMETIMES), were a touch blurred. By the time both of them stepped back, their writing had grown bunched and messy, smaller and smaller as it travelled down the page and they smiled uneven smiles - Laura's was wide and beaming as ever, Carmilla's small and not quite a smirk but similar and they were different but held the same kind of relief and happiness and a touch of shyness. 

"Let's have a look then?" Laura suggested. She hadn't really looked - focused on Carmilla, not wanting to look at something that Carmilla didn't want her looking at, and she waited until Carmilla consented for her to turn and Laura couldn't help but smile again because the pros far outweighed the cons and she snuck a glance to the side to see that Carmilla was...looking right at her. 

"What?" she asked. 

"Nothing." Carmilla shrugged. Laura folded her arms and Carmilla rolled her eyes, knowing that folded arms meant Laura was serious as hell and waiting for an answer. " _Nothing_ ," she insisted. "Fine. I was just thinking that this was so incredibly..."

"Fun?"

" _You_." Carmilla shook her head. "Why did you do this? The, the definitions and whatever?"

"Well...LaF told me why you were upset - please don't be upset with them, they wouldn't have told me but I," she looked so abruptly guilty that Carmilla absolutely had to know what Laura did, her teeth glinting in a smile that was fond (and a touch dangerous just because that was who Carmilla was) and Laura ducked her head, embarrassed. "I took some of their sciencey equipment stuff hostage. And they  _really_ didn't want to tell me but you weren't talking to me about anything after Christmas and I know that it's bad of me and I should have waited for you to tell me yourself and it was totally wrong for me to go behind your back like that but I was afraid that you wouldn't tell me and I just wanted to help so badly and,"

"I'm not angry, Laura."

(She swears that her heart stops every time Carmilla says her name. There is a way about it - the careful pronunciation, the way it slips so sweetly from her lips - that makes Laura think that her name is precious to Carmilla and that is a heady feeling.)

"Oh. Okay. Good.  _Good_. Because, here's the thing. I know that you killed someone - she was trying to kill me so legally you have self defence or whatever on your side, but morally I feel like you protecting me from a woman who literally turned her own husband into gingerbread - which I  _still cannot eat_ -" (no, that was not what Laura was most upset about, that would be ridiculous...) "-and ate him and was going to do the same to me and our friends so, I don't know, I feel like morally you were in the right as well. Also, I asked you to kill her. Also, I love you and I feel like I am a pretty good judge of character, you know, so I really don't think that you are a monster and Carmilla, you are very close to me right now."

She had stepped closer to the small ranting girl when she heard the words (hitting hard like the heart pounding against her rib cage) buried in the rest of her rant and she felt her long dead heart flutter. "You love me?"

"Uh-huh." Laura nodded. 

Carmilla stared at her a moment longer. There was no doubt in her that this girl - young and innocent and naive as she might be - knew what love was. (She knew fierce, she knew loyal, she knew strong, she knew dedication, she knew loss so strong it tore at her insides...) The knowledge that Laura's love was reserved for her? Despite all, despite  _everything_ Carmilla was - no, not everything, she only had to look to the side to see a list of some of the things Laura loved about her, her good points - Laura loved her and she closed the distance so that she could touch her lips to Laura's very carefully. 

"I love you too."  _I will be a monster for you_ , she thought privately, because she would do anything Laura asked her to do, but she knew that was not something that Laura would ask her to do. That was not something that Laura would see - because she was Carmilla to her, she was not Carmilla plus vampire, she was not Carmilla plus undesirable, terrifying, murderous, bloody extra. She was Carmilla. Whole. And Laura loved her. 

**Author's Note:**

> You can follow me on tumblr as well - URL unicyclehippo - and feel free to send me more prompts if you would like. (I, personally, would love it.)


End file.
